5 Pfennig - Duisburg Firma Peter Fix Söhne G.m.b.H

This is a piece of German Notgeld — emergency coinage issued by private firms and municipalities during the acute metal and currency shortages of the First World War and its aftermath. Firma Peter Fix Söhne G.m.b.H. was a Duisburg-based company that, like hundreds of German industrial concerns, issued its own denominated tokens to facilitate small transactions when official coinage had effectively vanished from circulation, hoarded or melted as base metal values exceeded face values.

Zinc was the default material for such issues precisely because it had little strategic value and was readily available to civilian manufacturers.